Asian American / Asian Research Institute
The City University of New York
While the new deadline of Friday morning was a defeat for local and state governments and advocacy groups that sued to keep the count going, people who have been working for months to get census numbers up weren’t unprepared for it.
The census provides critical data that lawmakers, business owners, teachers, and many others use to provide daily services, products, and support for you and your community. Every year, billions of dollars in federal funding go to hospitals, fire departments, schools, roads, and other resources based on census data. The results of the census also determine the number of seats each state will have in the U.S. House of Representatives, and they are used to draw congressional and state legislative districts.
The head of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus said the research shows that anyone who fails to see the link between harmful rhetoric and bigotry is “lying to themselves.”
New York City census workers are ramping up visits to hospitals, houses of worship and neighborhoods across the city to get residents counted, CBS2’s Lisa Rozner reports.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, writing, “The harms caused by rushing this year’s census count are irreparable.”
After extending the deadline to count every person in America, a process complicated by the coronavirus pandemic, the Trump administration reversed course. Critics saw a political motive.